Nan Ryan (26 page)

Or was he? An idea occurred and began to take hold. What if she played her hand differently? What if she stopped being so cross and peevish and behaved more like Fontaine Gayerre? What if she pretended that she was ready for a truce? Convinced him that she would cause him no more trouble? Hope renewed, Mollie could barely suppress a wicked grin.

By sunset they had climbed out of the wide valley. When the shimmering river came into view, Lew pulled up on his mount.

“We’ll camp here, outlaw.” He turned in the saddle, waiting calmly to hear the snarled protests of his unfailingly disagreeable companion.

Mollie smiled at him and said sweetly, “Looks like a fine place to me, Lew.”

Lew threw a long leg over his horse and
dropped to the ground. He walked directly to Mollie and plucked her out of the saddle. Setting her on her feet, he said skeptically, “I’ll bet Eve smiled like that at poor old Adam when she handed him the apple.”

Mollie, resolved to win his confidence, bit back a hateful retort, and said, “You’ve every reason to distrust me, but—”

“You can say that again.”

Fighting to keep her composure, she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “You’ve every reason to distrust me, Lew, but the truth is I am really quite weary and I know that you are too. I’ll give you no more trouble. Honest.”

“Honest?” he repeated cynically. “Outlaws don’t know the meaning of the word.”

Mollie lost her temper. “And you do? Hah! You, Taylor, are without a doubt the most dishonest person I have ever known. You came to Maya pretending to be a hardworking cowboy when all the time you were … you were … Every man who ever rode with the Rogers Renegades had more scruples than you!”

“Really?” he said coolly. “Even your outlaw lover?”

“My lover?” Mollie frowned.

“Too general? Let me correct myself. I meant your favorite lover, the Texas Kid. I realize the Kid was not your only one.” His expressive blue eyes clouded with disgust.

Mollie’s first impulse was to defend herself, but she didn’t. All at once she had a great compulsion to shock the presumptuous bounty hunter who had callously pretended to care for her. With a naughty smile, she said, “Granted, the Kid was one of many, but he was by far the best. As a lover he has no equal, and I still shiver when—”

“Shut up!” Lew grabbed her by her leather belt and jerked her roughly to him. “Damn you, shut your mouth! I don’t want to hear it.” He instinctively ground his teeth and immediately winced with pain.

Mollie laughed in his angry face. “Why, I do believe that I’ve upset you, Taylor. Your face is beet red. Perhaps you’d better go down to the river and cool off.”

Abruptly Lew released her and stepped back. His self-possession rapidly returning, he began to leisurely unbutton his shirt. “A splendid idea, outlaw,” he said, took off the soiled shirt, wadded it, and blotted the perspiration from his naked torso. “You coming?”

“With you?” She was horrified.

“Don’t you need a bath?”

Mollie could think of nothing she needed—or wanted—more. They’d not had a bath in three long days. She was miserably hot and dirty and the clear, cool river looked so inviting.

“I have no intention of bathing with you!” she snapped.

Lew lifted bare shoulders in a shrug. “Then you won’t mind waiting on the bank for me.”

Mollie felt her heartbeat accelerate. With Taylor naked in the water, it would be child’s play to steal his clothes and the horses. She would ride away and leave him stranded.

Purposely making her face and her tone expressionless, she said, “I’ll wait.”

“Good.” He smiled easily and reached into his pants pocket for the handcuffs key. It was all Mollie could do to keep from laughing out loud. He was going to take off her handcuffs, the fool! When the steel bracelets came open, she felt almost dizzy with delight. Lew nodded to a tall cottonwood at water’s edge. “Sit there, please.”

Congenial, Mollie quickly complied, taking a seat beside the tree. But she hissed like a cat when Lew crouched down beside her and drew her slender arms around the cottonwood’s narrow trunk.

“You are not going to … you wouldn’t!” She was incredulous.

But he would. And he did. He cuffed her to the tree while she kicked and cursed him.

Rising, Lew smiled down at her. “As soon as I’ve had my bath, you can take one, outlaw.”

“You big, bullying son of a bitch! You’ll pay for this! Better watch your back, bounty hunter. Better stay awake every minute day and night because I …”

Mollie raved on, threatening him, livid that once again he had raised her hopes, then dashed them. Lew paid her no attention. Unruffled, he stood with his back to her, calmly undressing in the gathering twilight. When he stepped out of his trousers, Mollie blinked and faltered in her heated diatribe. Surely he did not intend to …

She gasped when Lew casually pulled off his cotton underwear and stood there in the dying sunlight as naked as the day he was born. Mollie squeezed her eyes shut, but then couldn’t resist peeking. He continued to stand there unmoving as though he had forgotten her presence.

Incensed, but fascinated, Mollie opened her eyes fully and stared. She had never before seen a naked man, and she was naturally curious. So she took a good look. His tall, powerful male form, unadorned, was quite magnificent, she grudgingly conceded. His skin was very dark, a deep golden bronze. All over. Including those parts of his body that were usually covered with clothing.

His broad, gleaming shoulders had the appearance of having been chiseled from stone. His back was long, smooth, and deeply clefted. His hips were slim, his tight buttocks lean and hard. His legs were long and well-muscled. He was, whatever else he might be, a splendid specimen of manhood, so incredibly beautiful that the mere sight of him made her forget for a moment just how much she hated him. Awestruck, she gazed at him, wondering how it would feel to let her hands travel the full length of this superbly built male animal.

Her starving lungs filled with air and she exhaled with relief when finally he dove gracefully into the water. With the unsettling sight of him no longer clouding her judgment, her animosity returned. Her jaw hardening, she wondered why he had undressed in front of her. And why had he left his clothes almost within her reach. He had done it purposely to annoy her. To mock her. To tempt her.

The key to the handcuffs was in his pants pocket. He meant for her to futilely try to reach for the trousers. The cruel bastard! It amused him to toy with her. Well, she’d be damned if she’d give him the satisfaction.

Eyes narrowed, she looked and saw his dark head far out in the river. She looked back at the trousers. They were no more than four feet from her. She looked again at Lew.

If she could just slide her arms down the tree trunk a bit, she could stretch her long legs out and catch the pants on her boot toe. Mollie immediately began scooting down, dropping her arms along the tree’s trunk, maneuvering herself into a reclining position. The tip of her tongue caught between her teeth in concentration, she worked furiously as the sun disappeared completely.

She labored with single-minded determination, contorting her body, ignoring the pain of the cuffs cutting into her wrists and the tree’s bark scratching her arms. She made several unsuccessful passes at the trousers with her right foot. Patiently, she continued while crickets croaked and other night creatures took up the chorus.

She almost sobbed with joy when she managed to snag the elusive breeches with her boot’s toe. Trembling with excitement, she very slowly, very carefully flexed her toes back and forth until the pants were securely snared. Stifling a shout of victory, she gingerly lifted her foot, bending her knee ever so slowly and drawing the trousers toward her. Her heart pounded. She felt giddy. Escape was within reach.

Mollie screamed when the pants were yanked from her foot and Lew, standing directly above, dripping water, said in a low, slow voice, “Thanks, outlaw. You shouldn’t have. I could have stooped and picked up my pants.”

She continued to scream at the top of her lungs while Lew unhurriedly pulled the trousers on and buttoned them. He ambled away then and when he returned, he was smoking a cigar. Ignoring her curses and threats, he sat down on an overturned log close to Mollie and calmly smoked, his low-lidded eyes on the placid river.

When finally she quieted, he turned to look at her. “Would you like a bath now?” Mollie glared at him. “You’re dirty, outlaw. Either take a bath or I give you one.”

Mollie knew he meant it. “I’ll take a bath,” she said softly, “but only if you turn your back and promise not to look.”

Lew flicked his cigar away, rose, reached down into his pants pocket and produced the key she had tried so hard to get. He sank to his heels before her, unlocked her handcuffs, took them off, and shoved them into his back pocket.

“I’ll promise nothing, outlaw,” he said, “but let me assure you that I’ve no great interest in seeing you unclothed. So strip and get into the water.” He sat down beside her, leaned back against the tree.

Mollie shot to her feet, thinking that he had to be the most contemptible man it had ever been her misfortune to meet. He was cold-hearted, mean, and downright insulting. While she would most certainly never dream of allowing him to see her undressed, she couldn’t help but be offended that he would have no desire to see her naked. She had sure been curious about him.

His indifference was an unspoken challenge. Her back to Lew, Mollie began to smile She unbuttoned her white shirt and let it slide slowly down her slender arms and fall to the ground at her feet. Bending from the waist, she took off her left boot and dropped it. Then the right. She drew in a deep breath and unbuttoned her buckskin pants.

While the last faint tinges of pink and purple lingered in the west, she slithered out of the trousers, taking her good sweet time, making a provocative ritual of it. And all the while she was wondering if the silent man behind her even bothered to watch.

His blue eyes narrowed with anger
and
interest, Lew didn’t miss a single seductive movement. His heart thudding in his chest, he watched helplessly, wishing it were not too late to get up and walk away.

But it was. If he fled, she’d know she had affected him. Besides, he couldn’t have left if he tried. Mesmerized, he stared unblinkingly as she stood there in her shiny satin chemise and nothing else. And he hoped she would immediately dash into the water so he could get his breath.

She did not. Instead she lifted a hand and languidly peeled a narrow satin strap down over her shoulder. Now Lew prayed that either she would stop or he would be struck blind. But she didn’t stop and he didn’t go blind. She undressed right down to her silky skin and he never took his eyes off her.

Naked she stood in the lingering light, tall and slim and delicate, the sun’s afterglow bathing her bare beautiful body a pinkish gold. Lew ground his teeth but never felt the pain in his injured jaw.

Her exquisite back tapered symmetrically to a very narrow waist, which in turn gave way to flaring hips and an appealingly firm, rounded bottom and gorgeous legs, long, slender, and shapely.

Mollie stood there for what seemed forever. Finally giving up, conceding that the sight of her unclothed disturbed him not at all, she walked down to the water and jumped in. Feeling oddly disappointed and hurt, she moved swiftly out into the cool, deep river, swimming with sure, long strokes. It was not until she had been in the water for several minutes that it occurred to her that she’d left her clothes at Lew’s feet. The realization filled her with dread. It was one thing to stand with her bare backside to him, quite another to face him naked. Even if he wasn’t interested.

Mollie waited for Lew to get up and move away. But he didn’t. He remained where he was, back against the tree, knees bent and wide apart, arms resting atop them. She was growing chilled and tired. She longed to get out, dress, and eat supper. She swam toward the bank, stopping to tread water when she was close.

“Taylor, I’m ready to get out,” she called to him.

“Good. I’m getting hungry.” He didn’t move a muscle.

“My clothes?”

“Right where you stepped out of them.”

“I know very well where they are,” she snapped, her irritation mounting. “Will you kindly bring them to me.”

Lew crossed his arms over his chest. “Come and get them.”

“Oh! I should have expected as much from you! I’ll stay in the damned river all night before I come out with you sitting there!”

“Suit yourself, outlaw.”

Long minutes passed. Mollie grew angrier and angrier. Cold, exhausted, she was trapped. He’d stay there forever just to spite her. Well, what difference did it make? She had aroused absolutely no interest when she undressed before him. To hell with him!

Mollie swam to shore, climbed out and headed toward Lew, her bravado slipping as she neared him. Teeth chattering, she used her hands to try and cover herself. Her face turning crimson, she felt as if she might die of embarrassment. But he never so much as lifted a dark eyebrow. He lazily lit a fresh cigar, the brief flame of the sulfur match illuminating his indifferent face. Languidly he smoked, the cheroot’s tip glowing hot as he drew deeply on it.